Scott’s Fired

This happened more swiftly than I thought it would. The morning after the Cavs finished their season with a loss to the also-lowly Bobcats, Byron Scott is jobless. You know the story: three straight years deep in the lottery, rumors of locker room dissent, lots of looks similar to the one pictured above, where Scott just sort of peered out over the court as if it were an ocean, with a look of peevishness or bemusement.

There’s a sad impotency to ineffectual coaching that’s unique to the profession. The guy in a suit on the sidelines seems as if he might as well be a hundred miles away from the court. Players screw up. Not that they mean to screw up and not that the coach wants them to screw up, but they make mistakes. Over and over again. Maybe they stop listening to the guy in a suit on the sidelines because they’re frustrated or feel he’s not helping. A fissure widens. The coach’s control is revealed to be highly contingent.

There has been a lot of talk over the past few weeks that the Cavs need a firebrand who can whip the team into shape—barge through the locker room door imperiously and tell Kyrie Irving that, son, on this team we play with maximum effort. This is a gross, paternalistic strain of fandom—informed by the notion that these players in some way belong to us; they should be ideal actors because, dammit, we pay for their salaries. I think we should all do our best to avoid being that type of fan, especially in terms of this now-active coaching search. Irving will improve or stagnate according to his will; all a coach can do is advise him. You can tell all-stars what to do, but it’s up to them to listen. The Cavs should find someone who can speak to Irving, help him grow into the leadership role he needs to occupy, and not someone who will try to break him, because he probably won’t break.

I don’t know why Scott was fired, specifically, though I have a hard time believing all the losing was the primary reason. This team started the season with no bench and sub-par starters at three positions. Then Andy Varejao went down. Tristan Thompson and Dion Waiters improved markedly. Chris Grant poached a respectable bench unit from salary-dumping Memphis and Washington’s scrap heap. Then more injuries. I find it hard to believe Scott was expected to do significantly better than he did, record-wise, though the record is abysmal. Coincidentally, it could land the Cavs at the very top of this upcoming draft. From what I know of Grant, he’s a pragmatist who looks long-term while keeping himself firmly rooted in the present, so even if the Cavs lost, say, ten or fifteen more games than he thought they would this season, he’ll take the high draft pick and move forward.

What I’m more inclined to believe is Scott was fired for reasons less apparent in the standings and more apparent on the court: the puzzling substitutions patterns, the lack of ingenuity on offense (especially down the stretch), the damn high-pressure defensive system that was at least partially to blame for the Cavs’ historically bad opponent shooting percentages over the past three seasons. Perhaps this group of players was too young, too disparate to achieve respectability, but Scott could never assemble them in a way where it became easy to see where the future might lead. If the rumors are true, the players might have been divided as to whether he knew what he was doing. As of this morning, I’m certain the Cavs have talent, but I’m uncertain how that talent fits together and how each players’ individual skills can best serve the team’s success. A great coach is a great sense-maker, and this team is still gibberish in motion.

I’m sure the Cavs have a list, but I wonder who will want this job and the sort of work it’s going to entail. Surely, there are more than a few out-of-work head coaches and ambitious assistants who see a young team with promise, but it’s going to take a lot of effort—and some very specific expertise—to turn this team into a winner over the next few years. C:TB’s Nate Smith has been compiling a list over the past few weeks, and he’ll be hitting you with the a batch of possible candidates tomorrow morning.

At any rate, farewell Byron Scott. Whether you did the job well and got unlucky or did the job poorly and rightfully got the boot, enduring three seasons of rough basketball isn’t good for the psyche—I know this because I endured it, too, but I’m, at the very least, a wholly inculpable fan. I’m sure you’ll catch on somewhere else. Here’s to better days for both of us.

Part 1 of Bill Simmons’ trade value ranking came out today. Ellington and Livingston are mentioned and there should be at least a pair of Cavs in his top 50 with Kyrie probably being in the top 5. Silver linings. Better days are ahead.

@ Colin Here, Here with a toast to Bryon Scott . He did some wonderful player development no doubt for Kyrie, TT, Dion and Zeller. He also tapped into scoring talent Mike Brown never would approach in Varejao. He put Ellington on the map whereas he was just background scenery He had more patience with rookies than probably any coach had to before. It did suck he had sometimes 6 players out with injuries especially in these last weeks and we didn’t have a bench until the Memphis trade. He had a good eye to pick rookies and the Livingston pick up was genius for us. He did encourage Walton he wasn’t all washed up that he could be a productive leader on the bench and HE WAS! But Colin you are right on the insane rotations especially when we have a player hot. Didn’t call the needed time outs for this young team. They often looked lost with no idea how to defend. And it was DEFENSE that killed Coach Bryon Scott in the long run. There wasn’t any player improvement in defense in 3 years. That was more of a demise to the CAvs than the multitude of injuries in the big picture. This stinks because he is very likeable!

If it’s Mike Brown, I riot and then give up on the team. Would be so incredibly embarrassing to bring him back. Not to mention he lost his team in the playoffs, a season after almost single-handedly throwing the 2009 ECF with some of the worst coaching decisions I’ve ever seen.

@Rich – the Cavs went 8-0 (all by double digits) before running into a buzzsaw. MB had that team firing on all cylinders. He may have made some mistakes in that series but Orlando got extremely lucky as well. Rafer Alstons explosion? Dwight Howard’s FT %. All the insane clutch shots. Pietrus out of rhythm transition 3s…. That series had everything.

Ok, so then he goes and fails miserably in Los Angeles. Gets a pass on that too? He was fired for a reason the first time. The offense, in 5 years, with the best player in the world, never evolved into anything beyond “here LeBron, go do something.” Meanwhile, he has a totally abysmal track record of developing young players, as in, he can’t do it.

Throw in the decision in that ECF to put the best perimeter defender in the world on…Rafer Alston, out of nowhere, for no really decent reason, and yea, if Mike Brown comes back I leave.

One thing I remember vividly about that Orlando series was the Cavs playing really well in the first half of games, and then getting dominated in 2nd halves. That to me is an indictment on Mike Brown and his ability to make second half adjustments, or adjust to the adjustments of a coach like SVG.

Speaking of Stan Van, he is one of the few very good coaches out there who may actually be a realistic option. We shall see, but I’m not optimistic.

Also, Mike Brown has yet to coach a team without LeBron James or Kobe Bryant on them, and he wasn’t all that successful with those two guys. We really want to give him a shot at coaching lesser players? Pass.

Vesus, the difference between Lebron Tuning out Brown, and Kyrie Tuning out Byron is the history of the actors involved. Byron has a history of being tuned out, Kyrie has so far done it once (and justifiably after terrible coaching decisions and continuously terrible results), if its in his nature, we are in trouble no matter who we hire. Lebron was in the process of creating a pattern of quitting on his coach, unjustifiably as his teams in both cases were very much in contention, and Brown has only had a team quit on him once. Should Miami have fired spoelstra Because Lebron inexcusably quit in the 2011 playoffs? No, that was on Lebron, just like 2010 was on Lebron. If a player repeatedly quits on different coaches in the middle of a deep playoff run, something tells me the problem lies more in the player, especially when the player admits to looking at himself, making the necessary change, and then immediately succeeding.

All this said, I hope we can find a new face and someone with more offensive upside than Mike Brown as well, just saying we’ll be better off with brown than Byron.

Jason Lloyd continues to report that this firing was almost all due to Dan Gilbert. Grant had the look of a neutered GM doing a presser explaining why the team fired Scott. The lack of passion and commitment in his vague answers tells me that LLoyd is 100% correct about Gilbert’s meddling in BB decisions. Did the Cavs request a change of colors to Brown and Orange from the NBA yet?

The scary part for me as a Grant apologist is that today it became obvious that Grant is also now expendable. He couldn’t stand up to Dan like Ferry did because of the current great position of the team. With the collection of assets Grant has accumulated Grant isn’t really needed anymore. Almost any replacement could easily finish the rebuild with the assets Grant has already put in place. Then again with Dan impatiently looking over his shoulder he might not be given the necessary time either.

Mike Brown has been a head coach at two places and had two different sets of players quit, and this is passed off as somehow better than Scott? Ooookaay.

Btw, I never blame coaches for players quitting. Players should never do that. But lets be clear, Mike Brown was bad in L.A. and he lost that team early. Had Kobe wanted Mike Brown to remain the coach, Mike Brown would have remained the coach, especially at that point in the season.

The problem with coaches like Mike Brown and possibly Brian Shaw is that they would require a different type of personnel than Grant had in place for Scott. They want long athletic players, something that Brown always coveted, and Shaw has seen work in the remake of the Pacers. Start changing the roster to suit the new coach and the Cavs even start looking more like the always retooling Browns.

@ Tom and anyone who thinks bringing back Mike Brown is REMOTELY a good idea… please go back and watch a game from the previous Mike Brown era and be painfully reminded of the offensive stagnancy, endless ISOs and non-existent third quarter adjustments. Mike Brown as a defensive bench coach in support of an offensive minded coach, for sure. But not as the head coach.

Was Mike Brown’s firing in LA completely his fault as much as the Lakers are no longer a functionally ran franchise? We can use numbers however we want to support our case. Brown won more playoff games in 2011-12 and than Phil Jackson did in 2010-11. D’Antoni fell far short of Brown this year. You can make the case that D’Antoni didn’t have a full offseason. Neither did Brown. Brown has never lost a first round playoff series. D’Antoni hasn’t won a playoff game in five seasons. Neither has Byron Scott.

I don’t think it’s as much of a Mike Brown vs Byron Scott argument. It’s a what have you done for me lately world. Scott hasn’t done much in the past five years. As much as we saw him as a household name, he earned that name years ago.

I didn’t think any of the players will come out and speak badly about Scott the day he was fired, but they clearly could have tried harder to save his job. It’s been in the air for a few weeks. Tristan seemed to back up his words for two games after defending Scott. How much fight was left in this group? Even without Andy they are a much more talented team than Charlotte. That was a complete lack of focus loss. They could have fought for their coach but they didn’t.

This most likely comes down to Dan Gilbert wanting a team that puts forward defensive effort and in three years under Scott’s leadership they haven’t. He owns the team and we root for them. We want to see them do well. So does he. Is he so fixated on a defensive mentality because he cheered on the Bad Boy Pistons in his youth? Probably. Is that a bad thing? No. Defense wins titles. How have the gimmick offenses faired in the NBA without stellar defense? Not well. It’s a bummer to see Scott go. He’s one of the few people on this planet who has the luxury of cashing six figure unemployment checks. He’s blessed more than most.

Bringing back Mike Brown sounds like a horrible idea. The guy has no idea how to coach offensive basketball. Unless Kyrie is going to blossom into a 30/8/8 all-around monster like LeBron or Jordan in their primes; it makes no sense to even consider this. Mike Brown’s concept of x’s and o’s in terms of offensive basketball is so severely lacking that it could set back the development of some of these players.

And if they think that Mike Brown is somehow the connection to LeBron or something; that’s preposterous.

Is Gilbert really fixated on his memories of tough D in Detroit or was he just looking for a label to justify his impatience? If defense was so important then why wasn’t that the emphasis of player acquisition all along. If they want to switch to a more defensive oriented team the team has to get longer and more athletic. They will be replacing players with others who meet the new coaches needs. I think it would’ve been easier to stay the course and start addressing the defensive needs in future acquisitions than to demand results now. Any new coach will want his kind of players in place on the roster ASAP if he is expected to win immediately. The winning immediately directive is the same thing that cursed the Browns rebuilds. If Cleveland is indeed cursed it is by an everlasting overabundance of impatience.

Completely disagree with the first part, though the second is on the money.

First part is a straw man. No one wants a coach to break Kyrie. What we do want is a coach who will demand max effort from his players. If they aren’t giving good effort, they sit. Simple. The player learns he isn’t above the team, and the team is better for it. If the player cannot give max effort due to injury or fatigue, he needs to sit. Look at San Antonio. If Duncan slacks, Pop yells at him. If the Spurs dog ONE defensive possession, Pop calls timeout. If it continues, you’ll sit while the next guy plays. That’s what we need here, not catering everything so another 22 year old feels good and won’t leave us in 2 years. We already went down that road, it didn’t work. He learned the lessons, but only after he left. We need a coach who is willing to teach those lessons.

Further, the idea that the coach can’t impact the player runs counter to the idea that a coach should be fired. It it is all up to the players, then what does it matter who the coach is? Sense-maker or not. And the idea that Scott didn’t know what he was doing after winning 3 rings as a player and getting the Nets to the finals twice is just idiotic.

Having said all that, I think the second part is pretty spot on. Something else had to be going on. And your guess is as good as any, and better than most I’ve seen.

I’m trying to dunk home your tasty dish on the point of offensive stagnancy:

Okay the Cavs need new defensive schemes and M. Brown is a D scheme guy PERFECT! But I remember the painful 1-4 sets with Lebron pounding the air out of the ball in crucial posessions and then realize that the one area of growth that Kyrie needs is avoiding ISO/over dribbling/1-4 sets. I’m cringing thinking about the ball stopping possibilities of Mike ‘Go stand still in the corner guys’ Brown starts designing the offense for Kyrie.

I thought of SVG right away. Who knows what his defense is without Howard but I always felt

This was a great post. Love the point about the odd paternalism in some of the commentary. I think BScott just wasn’t the right guy for this. Some coaches mold their systems and some try to mold the players. His staff didn’t maximize the team concept in Cleveland but they seemingly all made connections that led to improvement. Spending 6 months watching flashes of individual gains without a jump in wins would have just been a wasted season.

@Joey Ha Ha Van Gundy yelling at Clifton or Carr. Hey I don’t care as long as we get better and get more wins. He can kick Moon Dog for all I care. Lol I do always remember him saying how he admired Irving and Varejao many times. What I like about him is he doesn’t hold back. It’s refreshing,

I’m more indifferent to the firing, I like Scott, but I really don’t like him just standing there expressionless while we blow a 20 point lead. I like the idea of getting a hotshot assistant from a successful team or Stan Van Gundy.

It’s possible Gilbert just wanted to see blood for his suffering? Sure. Is it because they never improved defensively and gave up on Scott for the past five weeks? Most likely. I do think Gilbert has a fixation with the Bad Boys era Pistons. He is a proud Detroit guy through and through and was in his mid to late 20’s when the Pistons ruled the NBA landscape. He tweeted early this year that when the Cavs return to NBA prominence they will be a defensive team. Defense wins games. It never improved under Scott.
It’s not the NFL. It’s not like they were drafting 43 players when Gilbert always wanted a 34 defense. Most NBA players physically are capable of adequate defense. Kyrie was the right pick either way. He was an alpha dog and the best player in the draft. Tristan wasn’t picked for his offensive potential. He was picked because he could be an elite offensive rebounder and was an engaged defender. Waiters secured the hole for a second scorer. The biggest burned Lebron had in Cleveland was the lack of a capable second option. Grant probably projected that Waiters could be a tenacious man defender with experience. Young players are generally terrible at defense.

It’s not like Scott isn’t without blame. His resume over the past five years includes zero playoff wins and largest defeat in playoff history…Along with the losing streak. Everyone has injuries and they are harder on young teams than established ones, but the team obviously gave up Scott. It was most likely the lack of improvement on defense and the tuning out than the overall record.

Mike Brown’s offense featured two of the most ball dominant lead dogs in NBA history. Im not a huge fan, but I’d like to see how well his version of the Princeton works with players who actually know the basics of how to run it. Stan Van would be my top choice, but I fully expect us to end up with somebody like Mo Cheeks.

Scott had 3 years to show that things are moving forward. The progress was not what the organization expected. so it was time to move on. That’s the way things are done in the NBA. Scott did get a lot of leeway and in the end the credit run out.

LA never quit on brown, they simply weren’t as good as everyone was expecting and Brown was scapegoated for it. Kobe didn’t like him, but kobe doesn’t like anyone outside of Phil, but he still got farther his first year with brown than his last with phil.

For everyone killing Brown for his offense, I gotta say this. Yes, it was terrible. It was all ISOs and lebron hero ball and pretty much letting the players do what they wanted for themselves. You know what else? That is exactly the offense we’ve been running for three years under Scott, only Scott never put together anything approximating a defense and Brown had his teams in the top 5 more often than not on that end of the floor.

Vesus, you are delusional if you think the Lakers would take a wiff of Scott. He won’t be coaching there, ever, period. Why the hell would LA hire a guy who hasn’t done anything in 5 years, who’s replacements historically outperform him, who is over a hundred games short of .500 in his career, is coming off 3 seasons of .28 ball, who’s never won it all, and who has a history of grinding too hard on players? Where does everyone get this notion that Scott is some cream of the crop coach? In 2003 he certainly looked like he had potential to get there, but that was all it was, potential, and he never got there, and he’s been trending downward ever since.

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